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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

As I mentioned yesterday, I have been working on some spaces with a local blog reader, Becky. She and I had such a great time making over her dining area and living room, that I was blessed to be invited back to help her in surprising her daughter with a bedroom update as well!

Seriously? A little girl's room? I. Could. Not. Wait! And the fact that is was a birthday gift was the icing on the cake!

The room was previously being used by their son, but it was soon going to be Catherine's new personal haven. Here is the blank slate I was given to work with:

Catherine already had a lovely white bed frame and I was given some fabric swatches her incredibly talented grandmother was using to make her new birthday quilt, which is what I used as inspiration for the entire room.

The plan was to paint the room a super light and airy neutral {I selected Behr's White Truffle}. This was beyond my comfort zone as I typically want to add boatloads of color to a space. However, my goal was to give her a room she could grow with, so neutral was the name of the game. To give the walls a little extra interest, I proposed a stripe focal wall {painted in Behr's Ocean Pearl}. A simple valance would have to do the trick, since the window would be tightly framed with furniture due to the overall size of the room. A gallery wall of frames filled with the fabric swatches would add some life to the walls, as would a large tree decal combined with 3D wallflowers. She already owned a desk and chair, I just proposed the desk legs be softened with some twine. The light fixture was still builders grade, so I envisioned a simple drum shade to replace it. Finally a decorative mirror, floral pillow and baskets for the closet would finish things off.

Here is the kicker. Because we wanted to surprise Catherine, the whole project was going to be done in a single day. You read that right. ONE DAY! To make this happen, I gave Becky some homework, like getting the walls painted with the solid color and priming these pieces of furniture that I planned on reusing in the space:

The hubs and I showed up on Saturday morning, goodies and tools in hand, and went straight to work. Bryan started taping out the stripes on the wall...

While I quickly gave the furniture a coat of paint {which was already primed for me}:

Once I was done painting the night stand and storage cabinet, it was time to tackle the striped focal wall:

While the paint dried, Bryan began installing a new closet system, very similar to the one we used in our boy's bedroom here. I took the 14 cabinet knobs outside and stuck them through a piece of cardboard to be sprayed:

Still lots to do! Like dress up the owl lamp shade with ribbon and the desk legs with twine:

And install that giant tree decal:

Once the knobs were dry, they were a little too bright pink for my liking. So, I just used a craft paint dobber to add a softer rosey pink dot to the middle:

Bryan finished up the closet, installed the hanging drum pendant, valance, picture ledge, mirror and a surprise chalk board feature. The sun was starting to go down and we just finished in time to snag a couple of photos before the big reveal!

So what did Catherine think?

The reveal went wonderful. She entered with bright eyes and after a solid, "Wow!" she was basically left speechless! I loved watching her sit on her new pouf and just take it all in. You could feel her delight and it was a very touching and amazing experience to be a part of!

I had so much fun working with Becky and her family on their spaces, a huge THANK YOU goes out to them for letting me invade their home and play with paint!

I have always done extra coats, let it cure and then prime it with a piece of chalk. All of these steps were on the back of the can {I didn't realize that my first time around using it}. I have had OK luck with the paint, as long as I don't use the chalk pens {although, those are great for vinyl chalk labels/boards}. Erasers don't work either, we just clean up with a microfiber rag and water and it does the trick.

Beautiful! I wish you could ass where you got all of these cute accessories (especially the owl lamp and white mirror over the bed) like you do with the scroll-over feature in your home tour. I "need" some of this for own daughters' rooms :)

Amazing transformation! I would have thought you would've painted the wood trim, but it looks good with the wall color change. Quick question - what's the secret to getting decals to stick well? Is it the paint finish, the quality of the decal, the application?

Hmmmm? Not sure, I have never had any trouble with decals sticking? I would imagine a clean dry surface works best. I use a transfer tool {or mostly just a credit card} to transfer the decal onto the surface. It just takes a small amount of pressure to do the trick.

Hi, the room looks great!! I saw one photo with part of the drum shade in it (ceiling).. so is that a whole light system, or did you just attach a shade to the existing light fixture? I would be interested to know what you purchased if it is a system. I am looking for an affordable drum shade system for my ceiling.

Hello Jen, I recently stumbled across your blog by chance, I live in the UK and now I find myself checking in every day to see what's new! Just wanted to say what a pretty room, I can't believe you created such a beautiful space in such a short time - very inspiring! I love the colours, although like you I have 3 young boys, so I am going to 'borrow' the lovely design you did in your own home for the younger two - I have already started by dismantling our bunk beds! Keep up the good work, I love your style x

Beautiful work! I am obssessed with your blog. Youhave motivated me to organizemy whole house! I LOVE your taste. Wish I was local :) Where did you get those pencil cups? I love both of them especially the one that has all the blue pencils!

OMG!!! I love this room, now I want to re-do my daughters room and use the same color palette thatyou used. Her bedroom furniture is white so this makeover would look great in her room. I love the tree decal and thanks for sharing the link I am definitely getting one. I also love how you painted the knobs for the dresser. The room turned out perfect. Just one question I just did a chalkboard for my kids but did not put that many coats of paint. We are having a hard time with it erasing could that be the problem?

I can't believe how you painted all that furniture in one day. I have tons of furniture I would love to repaint or refinish but am so nervous I will do it wrong and it will peel or look cheap. What can you advise me to do with an old dresser I have that I want to paint white for my daughter's room like the one you did here?

I don't have any fancy tools.

Your stripes make the room...they look perfect! What wonderful partners you and your husband are! Bravo!

I typically use a good oil based primer, sanding wedges and a good paint brush. For pieces that have more solid surface, a foam roller is great as well. I am working on a piece of furniture for our playroom right now, I will plan on doing a tutorial of the process soon.

I hope you didn't already answer this question, but I was wondering, when you are about to redo a room, where do you start to find the accessories/furniture you need? Do you start with an accessory, then choose paint, or choose paint colors first? I am clueless when it comes to decorating, and if you ever start doing this again, I am first in line to be your customer. Do you hear me people?! DIBS!

I typically start with the items that I know are going to be part of the room in the end, and work my way out from there. For this space, I had fabric swatches and a bed to base my design on. I held the fabric up to boatloads of swatches in the store and brought a stack home to look at them in the natural light. Maybe a post on the subject in the near future would be a good idea.

I don't and I really need to do one {this was such a quick day with so much going on that I didn't have the capacity to tutorial this time around}, but hopefully I will have something soon on the blog. Until then, there are a lot of other super fabulous tutorials in blog land and on Pinterest {Centsational Girl especially has great info on her blog}

That is just beautiful!! The thing I absolutely love most about these two room makeovers is that you made them look gorgeous even with the oak trim. I am living in a rental and keep telling myself that the oak trim is my problem to really enjoying my space! Ha, I just need to see past it obviously...

Love this! I see the link for the tree decal, but didn't see a source for the 3D flowers...can you point me in the right direction? Would love to steal this look for my daughter's room. Maybe even spray paint her flowers pink prior to putting them on the wall! Thank you so much for sharing and inspiring.

Love the idea of painting the flowers! :) Here is the link for you: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015TI1RE/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=iheaorga-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0015TI1RE

Hello ! Congratulations, it's a wonderful job. Could you tell me about the desk : how cover legs with twine ? I imagine you turn around, but how to fix twine ? Sorry for my english (I'm French). I love your work, sincerly.

I found this post via Pinterest and like many other commenters I'm totally in love with this room! I'm considering getting a big chalkboard like the one in this room. Do you have any tips for hanging such a big piece, so that it stays stable while the kids are busy chalking it up? Any advice you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks so much!

We air-nailed it right to the wall. That thing isn't going anywhere! You could also just hang it like you would any other frame and then add the strong picture hanging command strips to each corner behind the frame.

You did such a beautiful job. I recently started following your blog and it inspired me to not only organize my home, but to start a blog of my own! I mentioned you in my very first post ( I hope you don't mind). I love the color of the stripes. I have had trouble thinking up a perfect shade of grey for my guest bath and I think the Ocean Pearl may be it! Colors are so hard to tell in pictures, but it looks like a soft grey. Did you use it on the little end table as well or is that the Ashwood color?

This is lovely, Jen. My favorite part is the tree and the 3D flowers. I also enjoyed the other post looking at their homeschool area....I am going to be homeschooling for the first time this fall and it was really helpful.

By the way, we just repainted my son's room and you definitely influenced me. I decided to add a stripe around the room right above his chair rail. Never would have thought of that "pre-Jen!" It turned out GREAT. :0)

Ok, love this!! I've been trying to change my shared room for son and daughter. I'm doing a nautical theme, but want to go more subtle/cottagey and not primary. Their bedding is blue and lavender solid. And their bunk bed is a medium brown. One, do you think this color scheme on the walls would work? And, two, what color white did you paint the bed? Thanks!

We measure from the top of the ceiling down, and mark every 12". Because the existing wall color is a stripe, the tape should fill that wall color and leave the "to be painted" areas open. Hard to explain, but you can see a few more tutorials on my blog below:

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